Of a Feline Persuasion
by GreenLady
Summary: Eiji's a little too cat-like, and Kaidou's a little confused. KaidouEiji.


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**Warnings**: PG for subtle shonen-ai and a teeny bit of bad language.  Something of a drabble.

Disclaimer: This is a profitless fan work done by a fan for fans, and I doubt anyone else would want it. 

**Of a Feline Persuasion**

Kaidou Kaoru is a cat person. It's a little known fact that would surprise his Seigaku teammates, though surprise is probably too tame of a word. Most likely, it would cause them to stare with open mouths and then face-vault into the dirt in a way that would shame the effects of Inui's vegetable juice. But Kaido likes cats. Always has. He's never been able to walk away from one. Instead he'll spend hours with a long piece of grass, waving it at the cat's face and watching the little head track every stray movement as if mesmerized.

Which brings us to his current problem.

Eiji Kikumaru.

Eiji is definitely not a cat. He walks on two legs. He doesn't have a tail or fur (Kaidou knows this for a fact. He can hardly avoid looking in the Seigaku locker room, not that Kaidou has peeked on purpose). He talks in human-speech, incessantly. 

But whenever his redheaded senpai stands too close, (usually nattering away), Kaidou is almost overcome with the urge to pet him.

Why, you ask? It's simple. Eiji is the most cat-like human Kaidou has ever seen. 

The eyes were, of course, the first thing he noticed. That curious blue stare lightly slanted at the edges, and the way they unerringly follow the tennis balls being pinged across the courts. Motion is always of interest to a feline, and Eiji is no different.

Another obvious shared likeness is grace. Eiji is agile, his movements gravity defying and completely amazing, as any one who has seen him play his acrobatic tennis can attest to. 

Kaidou once saw a couple of high school kids tormenting a mangy alley cat. They dropped the poor thing from a ten-foot high fence, belly up. Somehow the tabby managed to twist around in midair and land lightly on its feet, where it preceded to dart away to safety. After Kaidou kept the high school delinquents from following, (it wasn't difficult, one angry hiss and a threatening step forward and they ran home to their mommy), he marveled at what he had witnessed. 

He felt the same way when he first saw Eiji perform one of his impossible jumps on the court. Eiji somehow always manages to land on his feet. 

Eiji Kikumaru's tennis style is unmistakably flashy, which fits well with Kaidou's analysis. His senpai is a shameless attention-seeker. He's certainly not dangerous, no independent hunter this. Eiji is more like a pampered, overfed, house cat. The kind that saunters up to perfect strangers on the street and twines about their ankles, body language screaming: "look at me! I'm cute, damn it! Pet me! Play with me! Love me!"

And Kaidou wants to. Badly. 

Which is why walking beside his senpai is a such a trial, and also why Kaidou spent several minutes pretending he couldn't hear the excitable redhead as he shouted at the younger boy to "wait up!" Eventually, he gave in, as he usually does, and waited with arms crossed as Eiji dashed the last few feet to sling a friendly arm around his shoulder. Immediately he starts nattering away about how "Ochibi-chan" did this and Tezuka responded with this, and didn't Kaidou think that it was unfair for them all to have to run laps? 

Kaidou didn't respond to any of this, as usual. But this didn't seem to faze Eiji. The other boy barely paused for breath, and he certainly didn't bother to wait for an answer. 

Eventually, Kaidou managed to slither out from under Eiji's arm and they started walking home, passing through a park on their way. Though Kaidou appeared indifferent to his senpai's presence he was carefully watching him out of the corner of his eye. Which is why he noticed when the redhead stopped suddenly in front of a clump of bushes, sharp eyes noticing something on the ground. Kaidou stopped too, and for the first time gave the other boy his full attention. (Technically he had it all along, but now it was obvious). 

His senpai kneeled down swiftly, reaching down into the prickly leaves. He felt around for a second, lips pursed in single-minded concentration, then he pulled his hand out with a small crow of triumph. He tilted his head up and to the side, beaming at Kaidou. "Nya, look what I found, 500 yen!" He held his tiny treasure up for Kaidou's appraisal, and leaned back onto his haunches.

Kaidou blinked once, slowly, and then stared at the redhead who was currently on hands and knees in a very feline pose, and that small sound of victory could almost be equated to a cat's purr.

Kaidou's fingers twitched from their loose fist at his side, and his hand rose slowly to Eiji's head. Opened palmed, he stroked gently but firmly from the top of the red hair to the nape of the neck. Wide blue eyes looked up at him, and suddenly Kaidou realized what he was doing and snatched his fingers away hastily. He flushed. Despite his feline-like mannerisms, Eiji was human, and what Kaidou had just done probably looked very strange, even to someone as odd as his senpai. 

He flushed harder, and dared to glance back at Eiji. The slender neck had tilted his teammates head at a quizzical angle, and wide eyes were regarding him curiously. Kaidou's hand twitched again, and only through a supreme effort of will did he keep it from repeating his crazy actions of before. 

Horrified at himself, Kaidou switched his weight to the balls of his feet and prepared to flee. Probably not the most constructive of things to do, but if he stayed here any longer he was bound to do something even more weird.

Suddenly, Eiji bounced up, and Kaidou found himself staring into a beaming face. His agile senpai swung an arm about his shoulders, grinning hugely. "Ne, Kaidou lets go eat. As your responsible senpai, I'll even buy!" Kikumaru continued chatting on about what he was going to purchase for them with his newfound money, getting more and more outrageous as he went on and completely ignoring the fact that 500 yen wasn't that much. They'd be lucky if the two of them could afford McDonalds, and it would have to be a bare bones meal, hardly what was required for two growing boys. But Eiji Kikumaru wasn't one to worry too much about anything, or think that far in advance. Really, he was only concerned with the immediate.

Cat-like.

Unconsciously, Kaidou's free hand twitched.


End file.
